Hand Winch

[Bryceee]

I am looking at getting a hand winch any opinions on them?

And do you think the Ridge Ryder 1,600Kg 4WD Recovery Hand Winch they have at super cheap would be any good.

[warnabrother]

Hilift jack and drag chain.. learn how to use it as a winch.. far more useful in my opinion

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[GariJ]

Originally Posted by Bryceee

I am looking at getting a hand winch any opinions on them?

And do you think the Ridge Ryder 1,600Kg 4WD Recovery Hand Winch they have at super cheap would be any good.

When I first bought my wrangler I was on a bit of a budget with regard to recovery gear so I needed the best bang for my buck. So rather than buy a dedicated hand winch I purchased a hi lift jack and have used it for several winching recoveries. Its 48 inch throw means it can be time consuming but I find that when I'm stuck I generally have all the time in the world (rivers and beaches excluded). The jacks winching capacity is essentially its lifting capacity.

I paid 130 for the jack and 50 for the winch setup. If you don’t already have a grade 70 drag chain they are about 60. On a side note I have noticed with the advent of high quality recovery straps people rarely carry chain. I think it’s important to carry both, there are many times when a chain will out perform a strap.

I have an electric winch now and I am still amazed at the amount of time recovery from the front has been either unsafe or impossible. And always glad I had the Hi lift as a backup.

The Hi Lift won’t replace a good hand winch but you can’t jack a car with a hand winch If used safely it’s the single best bit of recovery gear. I would definatley recommend a hand winch electric winch or not.

Having said all that I bought a Smittybilt amphibious electric winch from the states 450, 50 postage I think.

[warnabrother]

Genuine Hi lifts are rated to 5000lbs for winching.. I've seen guys skull dragging heavily loaded and bogged Cruisers and Patrols with Hi lifts which would be well over 5000lbs though..

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[drover]

Using a HiLift or Jackall is a bloody hard slow way to do it, the best hand winch is a Tirfor which in a lot of cases is far more versatile than a mounted job, you can winch in any direction and when used with a off road block or 2 needs very little effort. A Tirfor 16 got me thru many a situation with ease.

[Tuffeb]

ive got a hand winch, got an electric one too

its only a small basic hand winch not a very powerful one.

only has about 2 metres of cable too

i had a crack at using it once took about 2 hours to drag me up a muddy hill about 5 metres

and i was completely stuffed lol.

if ya going to get a hand winch atleast get what i call the "big ones"

there around 300 to 400 bucks and have more like 10 metres of cable and have a massive handle to get some serious leverage off

i still take the small one with me for emergencies never know when it might save ya life n get you out of a remote place.

but my electric winch with bull bar and winch craldle i made up was less then 1000 bucks second hand.

ive seen warn winches second hand as cheap as 400 bucks on gumtree and ebay. steel bull bars second hand for around the same coin. or make a winch plate like i did and use a factory alloy bar to keep it neat.

i reckon ya better off saving a bit more coin and getting an electric one and have the highlift jack for emergencies if the electric one fails

[PePe]

1600Kg is too small if the car is stuck in thick mud, you'd need at least 2500Kg preferably 3200Kg. The bigger the winch, the easier the pull.

At a pinch you can use a high lift jack, but it is harder and a lot lot slower than a winch. If the car is well stuck you certainly don't want the winching to be any harder than it needs to be.

My recommendation, save up more money and buy a bigger hand winch. Then make sure you strap it down well when not in use.